In honor of Shark Week, here’s a cat in a shark costume riding a vacuum. Enjoy.
OMG…I Can Wear Skinny Jeans
In April my jeans were a size 20. I’m now down to size 16 and can wear kitty-approved skinny jeans.
Last night it got a little chilly, so I decided to toss on a pair of jeans before heading out to the movies with the hubby. Now I haven’t worn jeans since April. I work out so much that I haven’t worn anything other than my exercise or cycling shorts this summer.
What a shock to discover my jeans no longer fit. They were way too baggie around the waist and thighs. When I reached for my belt, they fell off my butt. Woohoo!
Thankfully Old Navy is having a sale on jeans today ($19/pair plus $5 off for trying on jeans). I was a size 20 so I figured I’d save time and just grab a couple of pairs of size 18 jeans before doing my other errands.
But a little voice in my head said to try them on first. I actually thought about ignoring that little voice — I mean, no way I went from a 20 to a 16, right? Read More
Great Recipe Blogs For Low-Carb Foodies
In a low-carb cooking rut? Check out some of my favorite go to low-carb/paleo recipe blogs. You’ll find great, healthy culinary delights to try in your kitchen. Image courtesy of phasinphoto and FreeDigitalPhoto.net.
Looking to shake up my weekly menu, I’m visiting some of my favorite low-carb recipe blogs. When I feel like I’m in a cooking rut, I always find great, easy to make, low-carb meals on these sites. The recipes are amazing and will help you lose weight. Plus you’ll find smart cooking tips that save you time and headaches.
Dot’s Go 2 Food Blogs
All Day I Dream About Food – Worth a visit for the low carb ice cream recipes alone! If you’re like me and love to bake but gave it up for the low-carb life, this blog is for you. You’ll find great low-carb, gluten-free ideas for brownies, cookies, cakes and breads. But it’s not all baking. I’m making the tandoori lamb meatballs, cilantro lime cauliflower rice and grilled zucchini lasagna this week. Read More
Dot’s Fabulous Weight Loss Bucket List
Yes, parasailing is on my weight loss bucket list. Why do I want to do this? Why not!?! Image courtesy of Arvind Balaraman and FreeDigitalPhotos.net.
During my Weight Watchers meeting on Saturday, we started talking about the idea of putting together a weight loss bucket list — a list of things you always wanted to try to help you lose weight.
I’ve been thinking about putting together my own (not so) little list for the last few months. However, mine isn’t just about weight loss…it’s about confidence. You see there are things I’ve always wanted to try but never found the courage to do because of my size.
I can’t believe that I let my weight stop me from really enjoying life. Read More
Weekly Weigh-In: Up A Few Ounces
My legs are sore as heck and I ate right all week. So naturally I’m up slightly. Damn you water retention! Expecting better results next Saturday.
An uneventful weigh in on Saturday. I’m up about 7 ounces so either I gained some muscle or I’m retaining water. Considering how sore my legs were on Saturday, my money is on water retention.
I did a great job eating about 20g of carbs a day this past week. As long as I continue eating smart, I should have a nice loss this coming Saturday.
How Many Calories Should You Eat To Lose Weight?
A nifty little calculator can help you calculate how many calories you need every day to maintain or lose weight. Turns out my eating is spot on for fast weight loss.
Do you count how may calories you eat every day? If so, how do you know how many calories you need to eat to lose or maintain weight? Well, Authority Nutrition now has a calorie calculator that tells you just how much you should eat.
Based on the Mifflin-St Jeor equation, just plug-in your sex, age, weight, height and activity level into the calculator. Plus you’ll find some tips to cut your calorie intake without starving.
Since my diet is low-carb, I’m not a calorie counter. Using My Fitness Pal to track my carbs, I do get to see my daily caloric consumption. On average I eat about 1550-1700 calories a day. According to the Mifflin-St. Jeor equation, I’m spot on with fast weight loss. Sweet!
Tough Mudder Training Starts Next Week
When I started my weight loss journey, one of my workout goals was to do a Tough Mudder by 2015. Well that was two years ago and I’m targeting the June 2015 Tough Mudder in Scotland as my designated mudder.
I’ve read that only 78% of those who enter a Tough Mudder actually finish it. Yikes! If I want a shot at entering (and finishing!) the Scottish mudder then I need to get my butt in gear and start training.
Mudderling Overview
I’ve picked the Mudderling Boot Camp workout to get me started. Since I workout 6 days a week already, I’m hopeful I can advance to the Maybe Mudder level fairly quickly.
The Mudderling level includes a 5-minute warm up followed by 3 circuits (a mix of cardio and weight training), and a 5-minute cool down. Tough Mudder recommends doing this boot camp 3 times a week and 2 more days of cardio training.
All circuits are 10-minutes in length with the cardio exercises lasting 2-minutes each and each strength exercise lasts 1-minute. All circuits end with a 1-minute rest.
Circuit 1
- Shoulder jumping jacks
- Push ups
- Jump rope
- Squats
- Burpees (my kryptonite!)
- Slippery mountain climbers (to make them slippery, work on hard wood and place your feet on wash cloths)
Circuit 2
- Stability Skates
- Turkish get ups
- Ski jumps
- Crawl outs
- Standing mountain climbers (I loath these)
- Side planks
Circuit 3
- High knees
- Pull ups (My great white!)
- Quick feet
- Balance series – Draw a plus sign on the sidewalk. Stand on one leg and hop clockwise to each quadrant. Then hop counter-clockwise. Switch legs.
- Tire run – Stand on one leg then shift weight to the opposite leg. Continue alternating legs. Keep butt down, knees high and pace fast.
- Plank
The exercises are designed to work each part of my body and prepare me for the different Tough Mudder obstacles.
The good news is that I’ve performed most of these workouts with my trainer. The quick feet, balance series, tire run and crawl outs are new to me. I watched some YouTube videos and it looks like nothing I can’t handle.
The bad news — I can’t do a pull up to save my life! And arm hangs isn’t going to happen either. So I’ll keep working on the assisted pull up machine. So I guess I have a new goal — do 1 non-machine assisted pull up by June 2015.
Since the exercises are a mix of cardio and strength, I’m planning to do these circuits after my regular session with my trainer. So Monday, Wednesday and Saturday are my designated Tough Mudder training days. Tuesday, Thursday and Friday are for cardio and yoga. Sunday is my new rest day.
I don’t expect to ever get to the point of being the World’s Toughest Mudder — the people who can do that Vegas event are incredible (check out the video below and you’ll see what I mean). I’m doing this for fun (yes, crawling in muddy water under barbed wire sounds like fun to me). And to give my workouts some focus.
Low Carb Bacon Wrapped Jalapeno Poppers
My bacon wrapped jalapeño poppers came out delicious, but I made a few boo-boos in making them. I’ve corrected those in the recipe.
Sunday night I got the craving for Jalapeño poppers. These are great low carb treats that satisfy your craving for tasty, spicy appetizers. Lucky for me I had some bacon in my fridge. I decided to wrap each stuffed jalapeño in the best tasting meat around!
Jalapeño poppers are one of the easiest snacks to make. Tossing bacon into the mix doesn’t complicate the dish. It makes it more wholesome and delish! Read More
Cheesy Zucchini Tomato Bake
GreenLiteBites.com is a great resource for easy to make, healthy recipes. The recent Cheesy Zucchini Tomato Bake is officially one of my favorites.
If you haven’t checked out GreenLiteBites.com I suggest you do. You’ll find some great, healthy recipes that are easy to make. On Friday I made the Cheesy Zucchini Tomato Bake (the day the recipe posted…yes it sounded that awesome to me!).
How easy is this recipe to make? All you need is a large zucchini, 1-2 large tomatoes, provolone cheese, salt and some sriracha (found in Asian section of your grocery store). That’s it. If you can’t find sriracha, try using hot sauce instead.
While I love any food with melted cheese, I have to confess the spicy kick the sriracha added made this dish soar. I served this with chicken quarters and a small side salad. Yum.
My hubby and I both loved it. As an added bonus, it’s just as tasty reheated. This is real important since veggie dishes rarely make great leftovers (I like ’em fresh).
It’s something I plan to make again, but I’m going to switch out the provolone cheese for fresh mozzarella. Why? Because I always have fresh mozzarella in my fridge…that’s just the way I roll, baby!
Wow I’m drooling just thinking about it. Hmm…maybe I’ll whip it up tonight.
A serving size equals 3g net carbs or 3 points if you are doing Weight Watchers’ PointsPlus. Obviously you can cut the Weight Watchers points by using low-fat cheese (but why do that!?!).
Check out all the awesome, healthy recipes over at greenlitebites.com.
Day 4 of My August Flabby Arm Challenge
This is my Triceps Bench Dip schedule for August. I’m really excited to see any changes to my arms by the end of the month.
It’s Day 4 of my August Flabby Arm Challenge and my triceps are feeling the heat. I’ve tweaked my planned workout a bit. I’m doing triceps bench dips nearly every day during the month of August (resting every 5th day). Every other day, in addition to the dips, I’ll do one exercise with a dumbbell.
That should whip my triceps into shape.
While working with my trainer this morning I did triceps dumbbell extensions – 2 sets of 15 with 10-pound weights. I felt exhausted, and expect lots of soreness later tonight. Just need to do 20 triceps dips and I’m home free today.
Besides looking to see more muscle definition, I’m curious to see if I lose any more inches off my arms by the end of the month.